1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to teaching aids and devices which are intended for use by pre-school and primary grade students in developing number skills with simple integers; specifically, addition and subtraction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many different electronic teaching aids have appeared on the market in the last decade. The large majority of these devices have been aimed at teaching mathematics by providing active feedback to a student in response to an input by that student. With the advent of microminiature electronics, computerized teaching machines have become more and more complex, rendering some of them difficult to use, and expensive. Many of the machines existing today do not appeal to students who do not have some basic incentive to investigate mathematics.
A typical design of present machines being used in mathematical teaching devices is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,854,226, issued to Divine on Dec. 17, 1974. This device, although a functioning teaching aid, ignores the basic problem of providing to a student incentive to use it. The present day devices amount to electronic calculators which utilize a light or buzzer to indicate a correct answer.